New York rental rates are among the highest in the world, as far as we know. The cost of annual membership in US varies between $100-$160. Annual members in New York receive 45 minutes of free travel, unlike passengers in Washington DC, London, Chicago, Denver and Minneapolis, who receive only 30 minutes of free travel. And usage rates for daily members are as high as $ 4 for the first hour, $ 13 for the first 90 minutes, compared to a rate of $ 2.00 and $ 6.00 for most other cities.

Europe:

Bike riders shared in Europe usually pay between € 0.50($0.58) to € 1($1.16) per trip and up to € 3-4($3.49-4.65) to go to work and back, and an average of € 10-12($11.63-13.96) for a full day cycling. These rates will decrease in the future when bike sharing gets further integrated into the monthly travel cards. The cost of annual membership varies between $44-$110.

Market Dynamics

The latest trend in shared bicycle market is electric bicycle, and with the potential to make things much easier, it’s not hard to see why numerous cities in the US are about to start a shared bicycle system with electric bicycles or to add electric bicycles to their original fleet of shared bikes. Madrid saw the benefits of sharing electric bicycles and became the first European city to offer an all-electric bicycle program in 2014. Since then, the BiciMAD subscriber base has grown from 1,000 to over 50,000 people.

A major obstacle to sharing bicycle programs is theft and vandalism. Among the new technologies that have emerged in the shared cycling scene, geo-fencing has proved to be effective in the protection of bicycle from thieves and cluttering sidewalks. By relying on advanced GPS systems, geo-fencing ensures that bicycles are kept within a designated geographic area, immediately notifying operators when a bicycle is removed from the restricted area. In electric bicycles, these systems can be combined with smart locks that deactivate a bicycle’s motors once they leave an operating area, making them unusable and therefore less attractive to thieves.

Market Size

The millennials are loving the idea of a sharing economy, which can be testified by the popularity of the likes of Uber, Airbnb, Bla-Bla car etc. The reason behind the popularity of sharing economy can be traced to the differing mentality of millennials as compared to their ancestors. For them life is about experiencing a variety of things rather than carrying the liability of owning a house or a car throughout their life. The rapid advancement made in technology can also not be ruled out for a dramatic shift in the thinking of the younger population. It’s like why bother about owning something when you can avail it instantly at one swipe over your smartphone.

In 2017, annual memberships made up for more than 96% of total trips made in US but by May 2018, the number came down to ~87%. Now, this certainly implies that more and more new people are experimenting with the idea of bike sharing. Another factor that also needs to be looked into is the share of female users has gone up sharply for ~22% to ~27% in same period. Now, in a country where the females constitute slightly higher majority i.e ~50.5% of overall population, it means there are a lot of females who are still not part of the cycling ecosystem.

The bike share is still a male dominated space where male users made up for more than 80% of total trips made in 2017. Now as the female participation has gone up from ~22% in 2017 to ~27% in May 2018, we believe females in the US are just warming up to the idea of bike sharing and of course they will start from 24 hour/ 3 day passes, eventually moving up the ladder to annual membership.

Competitive Landscape

Citi bike has seen the highest share of ridership in US with ~15 million rides in 2017 followed by Divvy with ~5 million rides in 2017, Capital bike share registered ~3 million rides and Hubway ~0.9 million rides in 2017 and other systems ~11.1 million rides . Since the new wave of dock less bike sharing companies is financed by private funds and is not subsidized by the city’s municipalities, all companies have had to acquire venture capital. The Chinese companies have been leading the race so far, outdoing their American and European counterparts by a massive margin but in future, will they be able to sustain this massive scale.? Now, that’s a question we are debating on.

Dock less bike sharing companies are spending their venture capital aggressively to compete. Like Uber and Lyft, bike sharing companies claim they can make a profit in the markets they have been operating in for longer. The rationale being unlike Uber and Lyft they do not have to pay drivers any fee or even incentives, but we believe the cost to maintain bicycles, redistributing their fleet in every city, replacing the stolen and moving those that are parked improperly will dent their margins.

1. The market size (both volume and value) of bike sharing Market in 2018-2023 and every year in between?
2. Market segmented by User membership type(Annual and Short Term), Geography (US and Europe), Bike Sharing type( Station based, Dock-less)
3. Bike sharing users profile
4. What will last mile mobility solution of future look like?
5. The funding raised by bike sharing start-ups, segmented by stage
6. The impact of bike-sharing on bike manufacturing industry
7. The role of block chain in bike sharing
8. The role of capital in bike sharing services expansion
9. Market share of bike sharing companies in US and Europe
10. Can bike sharing displace car-pooling and car sharing, if yes then to which extent

We are a Market Research firm specialized in mobility domain(s). Our zone of research entails Automotive, Aerospace, marine, locomotive, logistics and construction & agricultural equipment. We deal in syndicated research, custom research and consumer research for all the aforementioned domains.